The present invention relates to a disk player. More specifically, it relates to a front loading disk player and to a disk player for receiving a plurality of disks and sequentially selecting desired ones of the disks for play.
In a front loading type disk player, it has been proposed that when positioning a disk to be played in the playing position, namely transferring the disk onto the turntable by moving it from outside of a housing for the disk player, the disk is transferred in a first direction which is parallel to the disk holding plane of the turntable and in a second direction which is almost at a right angle to the disk holding plane. As indicated in FIG. 1, in such a proposed front loading type disk player, a carrier 102 freely moves in a first direction (direction of arrow X.sub.1 and its reverse direction) between a projected position outside of a housing 101 and a retracted position within the housing. A tray 104, for holding a disk 103, is mounted on the carrier for movement in a second direction (direction of arrow Z.sub.1 and its reverse direction) with respect to the carrier. The disk player also includes a carrier drive means (not illustrated) which moves the carrier and a tray drive means (not illustrated) which moves the tray with respect to the carrier.
In operation, the disk 103 is placed on the tray 104 when the carrier 102 protrudes outside of the housing 101. Thereafter, the disk is set on the turntable 105 by moving the carrier 102 to the retracted position and the tray 104 is then lowered toward the turntable 105 so that the disk is placed on the turntable. Moreover, the disk can be returned, after the playing operation, by operations reverse to those described above.
The above-described front loading type disk player receives a single disk and conducts the playing operation for a single side of the disk and therefore inconveniences users because it requires repeated eject operations and loading operations to invert or replace a disk in order to play both sides of a disk or to play multiple disks.
Moreover, proposed disk players for receiving a plurality of disks and playing them are bulky. Such a disk player is shown in FIGS. 2-3. A housing 201 is formed as a whole like a rectangular parallel piped and a disk receptor 203, which receives a plurality of disks 202 at respective disk receiving planes and arranges the disks sequentially and coaxially with a predetermined pitch, is provided on one side of the housing. A base member 204 for holding the disk receptor 203 is disposed at a lower part of the housing 201 and a turntable 205 is mounted on the base member. A carriage 206 holding a pickup is disposed between the disk receptor 203 and the turntable 205 and is fixed to the base member 204 through a guide shaft 207 so that the carriage can move along the recording plane of the disk 202 when placed on the turntable 205.
A clamper 208 (FIG. 3) presses and fixes the disk 202 to the disk holding plane of the turntable 205 and it can be attached to or removed from the disk by a mechanism which is not illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2. A disk transfer mechanism (not illustrated) is also provided to sequentially select a desired disk from the disks 202 stored in the disk receptor 203 and then transfer the disk to the playing position, namely onto the turntable 205. The disk transfer mechanism holds the desired disk in the disk receptor 203 and then places it on the turntable 205 by moving the disk relative to the turntable in two directions. One direction is parallel to the disk receiving plane of the disk receptor (direction of arrow X.sub.2) and the other is in a vertically downward direction (direction of arrow Z.sub.2). Moreover, the disk 202 can also be returned to the disk receptor 203 from the turntable 205 by transfer in reverse directions to the directions X.sub.1 and Z.sub.2.
As is obvious from FIG. 2, the disk player has a separation distance of D+e.sub.1 between the center of each disk 202 stored in the disk receptor 3 and the rotational center axis of turntable 205, where D is the diameter of the disk and e.sub.1 is the clearance in the horizontal plane (defined by arrows X.sub.2 and Y.sub.2) provided between the disk on the disk receptor 203 and the disk on the turntable. Therefore, width B.sub.1 e of the housing 1 is equal to a value 2D+e.sub.1 +.alpha.1+.alpha..sub.2, which expression is obtained by adding 2.times.D/2+.alpha..sub.1 +.alpha..sub.2 to the separation distance D+e.sub.1, where .alpha..sub.1 and .alpha..sub.2 indicate an allowable size for separation between the disk 202 and the internal surface of the housing 1.